All posts by Paul Bradshaw

Founder of Help Me Investigate. I'm a visiting professor at City University London's School of Journalism, and run an MA in Online Journalism at Birmingham City University. I publish the Online Journalism Blog, and am the co-author of the Online Journalism Handbook and Magazine Editing (3rd edition). I have a particular interest in Freedom of Information and data journalism.
Communities

Communities campaigning against welfare changes [The Void]

UPDATE (March 1 2012): I’ve collected any feeds available from the blogs below into this bundle which you can follow on Google Reader. The feeds are also aggregated on the new Help Me Investigate Welfare Facebook page.

More from the excellent blog The Void: this time a hugely comprehensive list of various communities that have largely formed in response to changes to the welfare system. I’ll try to summarise them in a list here – if anyone wants to compile a Google bundle, I’m sure a lot of people would be grateful (I’ll try to do it myself at some point): Continue reading Communities campaigning against welfare changes [The Void] →

links

Now DWP FOI response on “mandatory” placements disappearing too? – link

screengrab of Google search for document

Following Friday’s post about work experience guidance being altered, The Void blog reports on more curiosities from the Google cache: this time, an FOI response from December which listed private companies taking part in the work experience scheme:

“The document could previously be found at: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/foi-3238-2011.pdf. Unfortunately it’s no longer there.  But that’s okay because good old google cache has a copy of this as well.“

The FOI response – which can also be found here – describes the programme as “providing mandatory work placements”.

An older FOI response which lists the names of voluntary organisations taking jobseekers on work experience is still up.

Again, if anyone wants to get a response from the DWP, let me know in the comments.

links

‘Mandatory’ instruction removed from DWP Workfare document?

5 Comments

UPDATE (29 Feb 2012): Channel 4’s FactCheck have followed this up with a response from the DWP:

“A spokesman told FactCheck: “The changes to the website were just part of a regular update. We regularly revise documents for clarity purposes.”

“When pushed on whether that meant that the instruction to mandate participants is no longer government policy, she wasn’t able to provide any more “clarity” other than to say: “I’m not saying the advice is wrong.”

“That’s a bit of a problem, because if the advice ISN’T wrong, but HAS been taken down, doesn’t that mean that Work Programme providers are now in danger of breaking the rules on the National Minimum Wage Regulations, as the government took great pains to flag up originally in the missing paragraph?

“Confusion reigns, and despite repeated phone calls and several days to think about it, DWP has declined to clarify the situation.

“The spokesman did tell us that the apparently damning FoI answer had been taken down because it contained an error (“one of the names of the companies was wrong”).

“And the timing of all this was pure coincidence, the spokesman insisted.

“So a document emphasising the “mandatory” nature of Work Programme work experience happened to disappear from the department’s website just as the controversy over whether other schemes were mandatory was raging in the headlines.

“Or in any event, that’s DWP’s story and they’re sticking to it.”

Original post below

cached copy of DWP document: you must mandate participants

Anton, a commenter on The Void blog, has pointed out that government documents on the work experience programme have been altered recently to remove the instruction “you must mandate participants to this activity”.

A Google cache of the documents still contains the phrase (on page 4), whereas the version currently on the DWP site (PDF) does not. (Just in case that cache disappears, here’s a copy)

It’s a bit late in the evening to get a response from the DWP on this, but if anyone wants to ring on Monday morning, let us know.

Also on Brighter Future.

UPDATE: Mary Hamilton looks into the documents’ metadata and tells us the original version was “created/modified 17/08/2011. Changed version created/modified 24/02/2012.”

Uncategorized

Audio: Chris Grayling defends workfare

3 Comments

Here’s Chris Grayling talking on Radio 4 about the government’s work experience programs. Notably, it includes a claim at around 3’30” that his email was “hacked” and that the internet campaign against the scheme is being “organised” by the Socialist Workers Party. (A claim worth investigating).

The clarification under the recording notes that “He has since told us that it was not actually hacked but that his email address was used on a complaint lodged with Tesco.”

Grayling defends government work experience programmes (mp3)

data

Workfare – how the different government work experience schemes compare

2 Comments

James Ball has gathered some information on the government’s work experience schemes over on The Guardian’s Reality Check, along with some useful context. The schemes are split into the following: Continue reading Workfare – how the different government work experience schemes compare →

data, links

Data: the “shambles” of Employment and Support Allowance appeals

2 Comments

Over on his Social Policy blog, Paul Spicker has a brief dissection of the most recent statistical release (January) for the review of Employment and Support Allowance:

“The implication is that we are likely to see over 320,000 successful appeals before this process is finished – about a fifth of all the former claimants of Incapacity Benefit. This will not be the total of wrong decisions, because a proportion of people who have been wrongly excluded will also be denied benefit; it will only be the decisions that have been proven to be wrong, after the DWP and claimants have been forced through an expensive and time-consuming appeal process to set things right. This is a shambles.”

If you need help investigating this further, let us know.

UPDATE: In the comments Paul adds the following:

“While I’m pleased by the widespread circulation of this posting, this was only a quick, back-of-the-envelope calculation, and I cannot hold to it with any degree of confidence. In particular,
* the rate of decision-making has slowed
* the statistical information in the tables does not cover the same time periods, and none of the information is fully up to date
* the level of new appeals seems to be falling
* the success rate seems to be falling, and
* large numbers of appeals appear to be disappearing from the process without explanation.
“That does not undermine the general point, that very large numbers of cases are proving to have been wrongly decided.”

data, links

Data: Welfare spending breakdown

4 Comments

The Labour blog Left Foot Forward provides a useful breakdown of UK welfare spend that demonstrates where most of the money is going, and how that might be shaping government policy.

Despite the spin on unemployment and immigration, for example:

“Almost half our welfare expenditure, all £78.4 billion of it, is spent on our ageing population. And the number of people drawing a state pension is ever-growing”

Benefit and tax credit expenditure, 2009-2010

Next, “A breakdown of [the 22.08 per cent of welfare expenditure that goes to workers on low incomes] shows an enormous focus on housing, which explains the increased attention on housing benefit:”

Welfare expenditure for people on low incomes, 2009-2010

Simple, but useful. Sadly, there’s no link to the raw data. Interestingly, in looking for that I found this website on UK public spending – created by left wing blogger Christopher Cantrill. As both of these sources have a self-declared political orientation, it’s worth tracking the source of the data, declared here.

(By the way, regarding political bias: if a source has declared it, that doesn’t mean their information is not valid, only that you need to check the information. If a source has not declared a bias, you should always assume they have one, and still check the information.)

Can you add anything more?